The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-03
THE SWEET GIRL GRADUATE.
Some Thoughts About Her-As She is
and as She Was.

NEW YORK, July 2.-There are good
many things in which the world is always
behind itself-that is, in which its percep-
ton of the march of things does not keep
pace with its progress. 1t goes ahead at a
more rapid rate than it knows it is travelling,
and it thinks itself away behind where it
actually is. The sweet girl graduate" is
one of these. She is talked about nowadays
in exactly the same way and with almost
the same words that she was ten, fifteen,
twenty years ago And she is now an
entirely different being from what she was
in those days As often as June comes
around and reports of commandments begin
to appear in the papers, the same old jokes
and stories and superannuated descriptions
appear in the papers that have been pub
lished every year since girls began to
graduate We are told how the dear girl
goes into raptures over her graduating
gown and into Mysteries over parting from
her roommate; how she exchanges VOWS of
eternal friendship with her dearest friend,
and how each declares that nothing can
ever come between them, and how year
after they do not even speak to each other;
how she reads gushing little essay about
the realities of life, and how she lies awake
half the night to talk over with her room
mate dresses they expect to have and the
parties at which they expect to be bellies
during the next year.
All this would sound very well If it did
not smell so old, but the truth is there is no
truth in it, 1t may be a very good and
faithful description of the sweet girl
graduate of generation ago, but it bears
much closer resemblance to the girls in the
grammar schools nowadays than to those
who are leaving college. The girl who
graduates in these latter days is not the
silly, historical creature, all impulse and no
Judgment her mind taken up with trifleS,
her views and expectations of life and the
world hardly better than what might be
expected from an intelligent child of II,
that the world annually smiles over, talks
about and indulgently pats on the head
when the commencement season comes
around The actual girl graduate is no less
gay and happy than this newspaper ghost
from the past, but she knows more, isn't
half as silly, is more practical and is vastly
more of a woman She doesn't swear indy
ing friendship with any Of her chums. The
nearest she comes to it is to kiss her dearest
friend and say, ''We mustn't lose track of
each othern She goes into neither mysteries
nor raptures over anything, and her gradu-
atinQ essay is not at all the silly, maudlin
stuff she is represented as writing. She is
very likely TO take hold of some question of
political economy, or some late discovery of
science, or some subject of modern literature,
and if she saws nothing original she at least.
shows that she has read judiciously.
Nor is her mind entirely taken up with
the coming triumphs of society and glories
Of dress. She is very apt to continue her
studies and take a postgraduate course,
most likely in political economy or one OF
the natural sciences with the practical aim
in view Of supporting herself. And if she
doesn't do this She takes a prominent hand
in half a dozen charitable enterprises, joins
three or foul societies whose aim is
mental Improvement and the spread of
knowledge, and lays out for herself course
of reading the very titles in which would
have appalled, her prototype of a generation
ago Or else she goes TO work, quietly and
deterrninedly, 10 earn her own living in
some one of the multitudinous ways that
are now open TO women.
1t is time for the world to catch up with
itself on the subject of the girl graduates,
find out what they are and stop jabbering
about what they were twenty years ago.
CATHERINE HAWKINS.